Music
How Costa Titch transitioned from dancing to rapping
I feel like the audience that was there from the dance days, they've seen a sense of growth.
The journey through the stages of becoming an artist is long and arduous, filled with inexplicable voids, and seared in an uncertainty that can easily induce intense bouts of loneliness.
While he might be climbing the ranks in terms of popularity, Costa Titch is familiar with this forsaken place. The successes following his chart-topping singles – "Nkalakatha", "Activate", "Thembi" – didn’t come without strategizing, steady grinding, and constantly revising his approach to see what works, and what doesn’t.
Even with a growing fanbase to boot, the rapper, born Costa Tsobanoglou in the Mpumalanga province's capital of Nelspruit, isn't oblivious to how fickle his chosen profession is. At no point during our conversation does he indicate the need to rest. In fact, he sees an opportunity to seize the moment by making the current situation work in his favour. He's been making music, something he says was becoming harder to do due to the increasing volume of live bookings he was receiving.
It doesn't mean that he's entirely unfazed. "Thembi", his current single with the rapper Boity, released a week before we spoke, is "doing extremely well" according to his streaming stats. "I'm actually super sad that we don't have shows right now," he says. "Funny thing about "Thembi" is it's actually moving quicker than "Nkalakatha" was moving [with the streams]."
Funny thing about "Thembi" is it's actually moving quicker than "Nkalakatha" was moving [with the streams].
(On Spotify, "Thembi" sits at approximately 36, 000 streams in two weeks, as opposed to "Nkalakatha"'s 39, 000, despite the latter song having been released over six months ago.)
Costa Titch entered the music industry as a dancer.
"I was a very versatile dancer. Hip hop was the main style, but within a whole bunch of corporate gigs, I'd done contemporary and other works. I could basically do it all. The only thing I can't do was ballet."
He narrates a story that his mother has relayed to him about how, as a child, he'd always be jumping up and down. "It's just been a part of me for my entire life," he says. "I've always loved listening to music, and the creativity behind how it's made."
The proverbial bug bit when he was working with musicians.
"I realized that my passion lay more within the artist than within the dance industry. It was never easy, especially when you've achieved a lot in one field. When you make that transition, it's a bit hard to convince the people that have been following you. That was a bit of an obstacle I had to overcome. It was an exciting journey. I feel like the audience that was there from the dance days, they've seen a sense of growth. They've been witnessing from the wack drops, all the way to the drops that are now part of the conversation in the music industry," he says.
The runaway success of his breakout hit, "Activate", did little for him in Mzansi. In hindsight, it was because people hadn't caught on to the sound. "South Africa wasn't even in the top 50 countries listening to my music. If anything, it was just playing overseas."
South Africa wasn't even in the top 50 countries listening to my music. If anything, it was just playing overseas.
He realised that he needed to build a fanbase in his home territory first. "Nkalakatha" followed a series of misses, but that's when he found his current sound and image.
"We [had] dropped an African trap beat on one of my projects after we did Gqom, and that did well. We were like alright, let's blend two of the things that did the best (the other ‘thing’ was a vernacular language, isiZulu in his case), and formulate that into a sound. Funny enough, when we got into studio, the first song we made was "Nkalakatha". That is how we managed to crack the code to the industry this side," he says.
We were like alright, let's blend two of the things that did the best, and formulate that into a sound.
The vernac and trap beat combination would not have worked without the collaborative nature of Costa Titch's work. That is where his superpowers lie.
"I feel like a lot of artists are so focused on trying to do everything themselves. They let their ego block the fact that with a bit of assistance, and more people's ears listening to their music and being involved in the creative process, they could actually make their product go a lot further," he offers.
The grand vision for Costa Titch is to represent the African continent on a global scale. For now, he's focused on getting these bangers out.
Connect with Costa Titch on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & Soundcloud
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